Highly respected coach Bill Oliver passed away Monday at the age of 85.
Oliver, known as "Brother" or "Brother Bill" to folks throughout this state, was an interesting man to say the least. He played at Alabama and coached at Alabama, but also worked at Auburn both for Shug Jordan (who gave him his first college job) and Terry Bowden. I began covering Auburn ahead of the 1998 season, which would be Brother's final season as a college coach and one not befitting of a man so steeped in defensive excellence. The Tigers finished 3-8 in one of the most calamitous seasons you can imagine.
Bowden resigned on Oct. 23, 1998, fresh off the heels of a 24-3 loss at Florida where Bowden essentially begged for mercy from Steve Spurrier. The Gators were far superior to the Tigers that season. The final score suggests the game was somewhat close. It wasn't.
Bowden's resignation, even to this day, is difficult to chronicle from an unbiased perspective. Bowden was remarkably unpopular in several regions of the Auburn world at that time — despite being less than a year removed from playing Tennessee for the SEC title. If you're asking me, I'd say Bowden decided to "quiet quit" ahead of that 1998 season for reasons I still don't fully understand. Oliver wasn't built like that. Oliver wasn't OK with that. He was the definition of "old-school ball coach" who was ambitious and aggressive and fiery and opinionated and poured every ounce of emotion into every single play call. And he worked for a guy who skipped a fall practice to attend a James Taylor concert.
This was a match made in hell.
Oliver assumed de facto control of the program after Bowden's resignation with plans on seizing the full-time job ahead of the 1999 season. What Oliver didn't know, or didn't process, is that powerful forces within the Auburn world already had been anticipating (coordinating?) Bowden's downfall and scheming to replace him with Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville. Back in those days, Auburn athletics was a tricky operation to understand because it wasn't readily apparent who was actually making decisions. The truth is that Bobby Lowder's opinion was the most important, but other folks felt empowered to voice their opinions. Some of those people told Oliver that he'd be the next full-time head coach at Auburn. He believed them.
He was listening to the wrong people.
Oliver, who was making $155,000 per season as the Tigers' defensive coordinator in 1998, ended up suing Auburn for being misled about the situation. He later settled for $210,000.
That final stanza of Oliver's career, the struggles of 1998 and all the sordid drama that accompanied it, perhaps overshadowed what was a pretty terrific coaching career. He won a title as a player at Alabama and was part of several titles as an assistant coach there as well. The 1992 Alabama defense he designed and coordinated for Gene Stallings was absolutely filthy. Everything about that defense was outstanding.
Oliver also went 29-14-1 in four seasons as head coach at UT-Chattanooga during the early 1980s.
For a young reporter, Oliver was a difficult man to understand. I very much respected his body of work. He commanded respect. With that said, he was from the old school when he much preferred to work with reporters he knew personally. I was not one of them. The entire coach-reporter dynamic was so different back then; everything was about relationships and proving your integrity through years of responsible reporting. That space is now mostly commoditized and impersonal.
I will remember Brother Oliver as an extremely tough man who held his players to a very high standard. He certainly had a temper. That was pretty common back then, of course. He had an excellent grasp of his defense, which many coordinators can claim, but he also had the ability to make game-changing adjustments in real time, which many coordinators can't claim. I think Oliver's advantage there was two-fold:
• He wasn't so egotistical that he couldn't see faults in his defense if they presented;
• He actively thought along with the opponent's strategy (rather than focusing solely on his own defensive agenda) and kept pondering ways to ruin the offense.
In short: He was a damn good coach with exacting expectations and a divisive, fiery demeanor.
One of the best ever to do it.
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